If Keenum goes down, is Kelly really the answer? Broncos fans are wondering, and general manager John Elway was asked about the No. 2 spot on Thursday.

‘He had his chance to be here’

When asked, Elway said, “I still feel like we have time” to figure out the team’s backup spot.

As a follow-up, Nicki Jhabvala, who covers the team for The Athletic, asked Elway about the possibility of signing free agent Colin Kaepernick.

Elway’s answer was … interesting. And assumes no one has Google.

“Well, you know what and I said this a while ago, Colin had his chance to be here,” Elway said. “We offered him a contract. He didn’t take it. And I said in my deposition, and I don’t know legally if I’m able to say this, but he had his chance to be here. He passed it.”

Jhabvala responded to a query on Twitter about whether Elway was talking about 2016, when he was in talks with San Francisco to acquire Kaepernick in a trade, or maybe 2017 or ’18, meaning the Broncos had circled back to Kaepernick after he became a free agent. Jhabvala said 2016.

Wanted Kaepernick to take a huge pay cut

Kaepernick, did in fact have a chance to join Denver in during the 2016 offseason; the Niners and Broncos talked for a couple of weeks about a trade, and reportedly settled on the parameters of the deal.

But the major sticking point, and what Elway is hoping you’ve forgotten, is that he wanted Kaepernick to either take a massive pay cut or for the 49ers to offset his pay.

Via an April 2016 story on NBCSports Bay Area, Kaepernick was slated to earn a guaranteed base salary of $11.9 million from San Francisco in 2016; Elway wouldn’t pay more than $7 million, a 41 percent cut in pay – and wanted Kaepernick to be the starter.

It didn’t get better after ’16. Denver wanted Kaepernick to agree to $7 million base again for 2017. Had he agreed to the deal, he would have walked away from $12.4 million in base salary and as much as $16.2 million over those two years.

Not only was it sound for Kaepernick to say no (he did reportedly agree to a smaller pay cut, but the Broncos wouldn’t budge), especially since solid veteran backups can make $7 million a season, let alone starters, he would have been setting a bad precedent for other players and with the union.

Kaepernick wound up earning around $14 million in 2016 with salary plus bonuses, roughly equal to what Denver wanted to pay him for two seasons.

This was a few weeks after the Broncos had offeredBrock Osweiler a three-year, $49.5 million contract with $30 million guaranteed to remain with Denver. Osweiler spurned Elway and the Broncos to take a larger deal with Houston, yet was still welcomed back last year when the team needed a quarterback and was terrible.